Hussein Bin Ali

INTRODUCTION

Praise be to Allah, and blessings and peace be upon our master and leader, Muhammad, and his pure household and the righteous among his companions.

As centuries pass by, the uprising of Imam Hussein (a.s.), the grandson of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.), shines more powerfully, as a medal on the pow of history. It becomes firmly fixed in the conscience of the Muslim ummah, and is more understandable in the view of the historians and researchers.

Similarly, the free faithful get more determined to follow in it's footsteps, and hold firmly to it's noble goals so as to destroy the oppression of the tyrants, and root up the governments of the agents of the east and west all over our great Muslim world.

As in the far past, all efforts made by the sympathizers, and the spiteful alike, to thwart Imam Hussein's determination to begin his blessed and tremendous uprising, which awakened the ummah and pulled down the thrones of the Ummayyad, had failed. Now all the hectic and poisonous plots being made to deflect the revolution from its right path, or obliterate its landmarks, or extinguish its blazing flame, will also certainly fail. There is no way these efforts could succeed, whether they center on distorting the image of the uprising, inventing stories and myths around it, or emptying it of its Islamic meaning and depicting Imam Hussein (a.s.) as a 'rejecting leftist', or an 'ambitious adventurer', or an 'avenger', or a 'mutinist', or employing any other means of diversion, cover-up and distortion.

Imam Hussein (a.s.) rose up. He continued his uprising and stuck to it until its last stages. He sacrificed all that he had, and offered the most dear men and pure souls to Allah for one goal. It was to defuse a 'bomb' which Mu'awiyah expertly timed and planted. That was Mu'awiyah, the son of Hind, the 'Eater of Kidneys'. The 'bomb' was planted to blast off the principle of 'Islamic legitimacy' at the bands of his son Yazid, to root out that principle after being gradually pushed off the stage. This being achieved, it would be an easy task to violate all Allah's bounds and laws, the first of which are the qualifications the Muslim leader should possess to answer the office of leadership, and the last of which is the cancelling of Islamic ritual s and ethics.

It is no wonder, then, that the orientalists, including the Jews and Christians, praise the Ummayyad rule, particularly Yazid, as the strongest leader in the history of Islam!

Al-Balagh Foundation hopes, as it presents to its dear readers 'Rays of Light from the Life of Imam Hussein (a.s.)', the third Imam of the household of the Prophet (s.a.w.), and his second grandson, who, along with his pother, Imam Hasan (a.s.), are the masters of the youths of paradise, that it can spread sweet wafts of the fragrance of the family of the Prophet (s.a.w.), and reach the masses of our Muslim ummah with the momentum of a principled uprising, the match of which history never witnessed.

We beseech Allah, the Most High, to aid and grant success to all the culturally aware vanguards, who reject their corrupt status quo, and believe in their promising Islamic future. He is the best of helpers.